As a pole dance instructor, I handle a lot of brass. As a mom, I handle a lot of sass. There is a lot more overlap between the two worlds than you would think. I’m a PFIC certified pole dance instructor and I’m also trained to teach aerial yoga. My life as a mom feels upside down a lot, and my life as a pole dancer is upside down a lot. The similarities continue.
I count to make people do things
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8. I use this to choreograph pole routines and also to try to get my child to brush his teeth at night. Counting communicates expectations, provides structure and keeps life moving along in tempo. Some times I wish he would move double time. We seem to always be running late.
People look up to me
When I pole dance, it’s because I’m eight feet in the air. They look up to me in a very literal sense. My son is now four feet tall, so his looking up to me days are probably numbered, but he still thinks I hung the moon. He believes I can fly, because he watches me fly whenever he sees my practice sessions.
I spend a lot of time explaining how I got into awkward positions
When I teach, I am deconstructing movement to explain the awkward positions I’m contorted into. As a parent, I’m explaining my child’s behaviour to strangers, like “When he asked me to buy him Playboy, he was referencing his dad’s inappropriately named cologne.”
A large part of my day is spent discussing booboos
At the studio, we talk about “pole kisses” (cutesy name for not so cute constellation of bruises that comes from colliding with metal). At home, I’m kissing bruises (and cuts, and scrapes). I demonstrate how to engage muscles to avoid injury when dancing so my students don’t get hurt. After, I tell my kid “For goodness sakes, DON’T RUN WITH SCISSORS.” I thought that was a figure of speech but parenting a rambunctious boy means I’ve actually uttered those words.
I seem to always be on the floor
We do floor work to transition between dance sequences and so I can sneak in abdominal exercises without anyone noticing (like broccoli mixed in with something exciting, another mom skill I possess). I spend a lot of time on the floor with my son, getting down to his level and cleaning up messes on the rug.
There tends to be a lot of sticky stuff
In my mommy life, I’m removing tacky bits of mystery something from the coffee table/wall/ceiling fan(?). At pole, we are applying grip aid to better stick to the pole and execute more complex movements.
Kneepads are a big deal
Whether it’s learning how to ride a bike or how to execute fun spins on the floor without breaking your knee caps, kneepads are king. Safety first!
My son is pretty sure I hung the moon, but that’s just because he thinks I can climb a pole high enough to do it. I’m thankful for my days handling brass and sass, even when I feel completely upside down, because at least I know I can fly.
Main image via
[…] You can see this post in its original glory on UrbanMoms.ca […]